Iron Maiden's influenced whole sub-genres of music. European death metal, speed metal, power metal, and just about anything with dual-guitar harmonization. Just about every single hard rock or metal artist lists Iron Maiden as an influence.

And, from the scientific study I did with utini2: More Google hits, longer Wikipedia article, longer Wikipedia talk page, twenty tribute albums as opposed to four, and more pop culture references.

No. I've consulted petemagyar about this. Brian May's a great guitar player, but they just layered guitars harmonically. Iron Maiden actually did twin lead harmonization, while Queen mostly did contrapuntal harmonies. While Thin Lizzy may have really started it, Iron Maiden "used it to death" and really got it down.

Has Weird Al parodied Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath? Clearly, they were nobodies and influenced no one.

as one who used to like the kind of music that iron maiden plays, i know just how deep the rabbit hole goes. the kinks influenced more music that i like (so maybe i would call that greater influence), but iron maiden had a much broader impact, i would say. but i still like the kinks better.

The thing with the Kinks, though, at least in the 60's, they were not terribly different than their contemporaries -- they just had better more catchy songs. This is not true for Iron Maiden. I am under the impression that they were responsible for melding operatic singer + metaalllll and for that, I think they are more influential on metal.

But, it's confusing to some degree, because the question is confusing. It all depends on what sort of influence you're talking about -- Pop music, or metal? Metal was only mainstream for a short time, and even when it was mainstream, it wasn't the metal-metal that got to hold that title.

The Kinks /did/ get to be mainstream though, and thusly affected mainstream music -- so in sheer terms of numbers they would be more influential, but in sheer terms of uniqueness, maybe not.

Iron Maiden's sold over sixty million records worldwide, but not as many in the US as their peers. You can't toss a dwarf in Europe without hitting some band that names Iron Maiden as their major influence, be they crazy gutteral death metal or whiny poppy metal. Japan through the late 80s and 90s and South America also were/are packed with their spawn. They just didn't hit the US as hard as they should have.

I would say they're both about equally influential, each in their own generation and genre. Aside from personal taste (I prefer the music of Iron Maiden, so I would subjectively say they're the better band), there's really not much comparing the two.

I do understand that on some level I'm comparing apples to oranges instead of Red Delicious to Granny Smith, but if you can't do that on the internet and make sweeping generalizations about the comparison, where can you?

i love your one-eyed kitten icon. and were the Kinks referenced by Bill and Ted? I don't think so. And we all know that Bill and Ted turn out to be the most influencial band in history and bring world peace.